Yanni. . .today was hilarious. . .yanni.

Let me first start by explaining the word “yanni”. I had this stark realization when it came out of my mouth automatically today—as opposed to joking or mockingly in the past—that I have lived in Cairo. Yanni means “okay”; it is similar to sorority girls saying “like” or yoopers saying “ya know”. Egyptians say it when they speak in Arabic or English. And. .it came out of my mouth automatically today! We often joke about the words “tieb” (use it when you end one subject and begin discussing the next), “yanni”, and “maashee” (means do you get it? Used at the end of explaining something and a reply is not needed), but I can not believe that I said yanni in a normal context. I guess I picked up my “southern y’all” for the summer!

Slept in a bit today, brought my white capris to the laundry to get the bleached and to try to explain in Arabic that they can’t put wet pants on top of colors (because they got blue all over my capris) and that since it was their fault I shouldn’t have to pay, then did the normal class thing!

After class, Mahrein and I headed to Mobacco—I’m obsessed but I’ve had to go to five different Mobacco stores to get my family members the right sizes! After Mobacco we went back to the school to catch the shuttle—and here the fun begins!

It’s one of those stories that Mahrein and I have told so many times to the whole dorm since it was so funny that I’m exhausted of telling it. .but here goes!

So only recently has the bus security guy in the afternoons been checking our shuttle i.d.’s to make sure we live in the dorm. Pretty sure I wrote a post about a girl protesting a few weeks ago but as a recap we have a dorm/shuttle i.d. and a university i.d. (they love bureaucracy here!) and only one security guard ever checks—usually the guy that’s on the guard from 3:30 to 7:30pm. Well on most days of the week we take the 3pm shuttle (after Arabic) and no one checks anything—because I’m paranoid and because a few times a week I take the 7pm shuttle, I bring my little, cheap, easy to reproduce card with me!

However Mahrein never submitted her pictures to get the i.d. made and since she usually takes the earlier bus it’s not big deal, but today we went shopping so she needed the i.d. she doesn’t have to get on the bus! (I could go on an hour rampage about how many dang passport pictures this school has of me since we had to get a zillion taken and turn them in for everything!)

So I didn’t want to pay for a taxi or wait for one, and there was no way I was letting Mahrein get in one herself so when they came around on the bus to check i.d.s (they never check the picture) we tried to cheat the system a little bit and share my i.d. I’m not saying what I did was right, but the bureaucracy is ridiculous, it’s not safer for an AUC GIRL student to take a taxi by themselves than ride the bus without an i.d. and he’s the only guy that checks i.d.s anyways. Apparently people have been trying to do this lately so he got smart and we got caught and dragged up to the Manager of Security’s office.

Feeling like we were sitting in the principle’s office in third grade we complained and were actually scared as we waited for the Manager to step out of his office—little did we know he’d be thanking us soon !

We, of course, blurted out our reasoning as fast as possible and started to bust out our fake tears when the Manager was more interested in how Mahrein went six weeks without an i.d. She explained that we only need it sometimes; the manager’s attention was now diverted to the guard that dragged us up to the office. I quickly pointed at the man all the AUC students loathe (because he is the only guy that checks i.d.s) and announced that he is the only guard that checks. Our manager gave our once-hating-us-captor a pat on the back and a “good job”, and we got a look from him that said “I hated you two girls ten minutes ago for giving me grief but will forever thank you”.

Mahrein and I were pleased we made a new friend with the guard but still sat anxiously to see if we would have any punishments—apparently the Manager was a little too upset that they never check i.d.s and I’m pretty sure he was thinking about when to hold a staff meeting and not anything having to do with punishing us!

He told us not to worry about our escapade but that he would see to it that Mahrein got her i.d. asap and proceeded to ask her for her AUC i.d. number. She confessed that she did not have her student i.d. on her either and the manager questioned how she got into class. We told him that we only need to show our i.d.’s at one entrance so we don’t need to carry them on us because we can walk to a different entrance—now he was livid! He couldn’t believe his little security team was not checking all of these things. He thanked us for the information, told us he was going to call a staff meeting and that from now on we should be prepared with both of our i.d.s, he thanked us again for the information, the guard that now loves us escorted us to the next shuttle, and we rode home off the hook !

After eating some pasta and chilling in the lounge of the dorm it’s time I get going on my Arabic! But. .yanni. .what a day!